Flotilla deaths reportedly causing anti-Semitic uptick in France

PARIS (JTA) – Several anti-Semitic acts have been reported in France since Israel’s interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla.

Between May 31 and June 8, 18 anti-Semitic acts including violence against individuals, the defacing of Jewish institutions, and throwing Molotov cocktails at and threats to bomb a synagogue were reported to the Jewish Community Protection Service, according to a report issued by the group. The group works in cooperation with France’s Interior Ministry.

In some instances, such as in the southern town of Grenoble, where a Jewish school was attacked with stones and its doors rammed, the incidents took place immediately following protest marches against Israel’s early-morning raid of a Gaza-bound flotilla on May 31.

One crowd of 700 anti-Israel protesters in Strasbourg “wanted to head toward the synagogue, with cries of ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Israel Assassins,’ ” according to the report.

The police prevented the mob from reaching the synagogue in the city, which closely borders Germany.

In another case, a man demanded to know which passengers on a Paris suburban subway were Jewish, and one Jewish male victim was punched twice in the temple, according to the report.

The assailant had said, “I don’t like Jews, and I’m going to hit you," adding later, "did you see what your cousins did in Gaza?”

The number of anti-Semitic acts in France spiked during the Gaza war at the end of December 2008 and into January 2009.

Devorah Lauter is a JTA Paris correspondent. She has written and worked for the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press Paris bureaus, and is a regular contributor to The New Waver Quarterly, which covers French culture. Lauter is currently completing a master's thesis at Saint Denis University on the relationship between Jewish and Muslim youth in Parisian low-income suburbs, as well as a collection of true stories on a Jewish and Muslim mixed gang.